One parent’s reluctant defense of McDonald’s …

My esteemed colleague Erin Allday on Wednesday wrote this well-read post (NSFPAoPtC: Not Safe For People Afraid of Pennywise the Clown) on the City Insider blog, about a consumer rights group appearing at San Francisco City Hall to demand the retirement of Ronald McDonald — calling him “the face of the epidemic” of childhood obesity.

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The root of all culinary evil?

I have some sympathies for what they’re trying to accomplish. As far as I’m concerned, all clowns are scary as @#$% and would be better off removed from the face of the earth. But I disagree with what seems like an increasing demonization of McDonald’s by parents and other concerned citizen groups.

Making fast food part of your life is not something you want to admit to in the Bay Area, where more people think it’s acceptable to take your kids to a bar than a fast food restaurant. It’s true that parents who feed their children a steady diet of McDonald’s are contributing a host of medical problems down the road. But I also don’t buy the notion that providing your child with an occasional treat — a dessert, a meal without a fruit or vegetable or a trip to a fast food restaurant — can’t be part of an overall healthy lifestyle. As much as fact-based warnings about the food are appreciated, efforts to ban the very existence of McDonald’s or its characters are a little patronizing. I feel the same way about legislators who want to tax soda, or let something other than the free market determine what goes in vending machines. Please continue to educate me. But don’t make the cornerstone of your education the presumption that I’m an idiot who needs other people to do my parenting for me.

So on behalf of the silent majority, I’m going to publicly admit I occasionally take my kid to McDonald’s, and tell you why I will continue to do so. Your own fast food admissions, or open letter to Child Protective Services, in the comments …

Moderation: There’s an assumption being promoted by the anti-fast food crowd that says people fall into two catagories: A) Healthy individuals who don’t eat fast food; and B) Mindless drones who eat at McDonald’s every day, weigh 400 pounds and would pawn their mother’s Blu-ray player for another Big Mac. I know from my own childhood, and the behavior of my children, that it’s possible to eat at a fast food restaurant once in a while without becoming an addict. Fast food may be bad for you, but it doesn’t necessarily define you.

Convenience: Left to my own devices, I would never eat at McDonald’s again. My wife feels the same way. There are much tastier options that don’t make our vehicles smell like a deep fryer for the rest of the week. But when I’m in a car with two cranky hungry kids, it’s not practical or feasible to drive them to one of Alice Waters’ school gardens and make a nice platter of spring vegetables and couscous. I like the speed, low cost and child-friendliness of the McDonald’s option — and reject the notion that these conveniences are some kind of insidious trap. The franchise provides a service that I find very useful on rare occasions. I always consider whether I’ve been taking my kids there too much lately. If the answer is “no,” I go without guilt.

Reality: I don’t see much difference between some of the anti-McDonald’s rhetoric, and the “Refer Madness”/”Just Say No” approach to marijuana education. If I lie to my kids and tell them one bite of a cheeseburger is going to cause their leg to get amputated from diabetes, at some point they’re going to discover the truth, wonder what else I’m lying about, and possibly overcompensate in the other direction. I took the proactive step of introducing my son to McDonald’s at a young age (I wrote about this event in more detail here), and have been teaching him that it’s a not-very-healthy occasional treat ever since.

As I parent, I find it curious that McDonald’s always seems to be at the center of these protests. McDonald’s at least offers some healthy options — apple slices and lowfat milk — in its Happy Meals. Compare that to someplace like Taco Bell, which included Churro-like cinnamon crisps as its kid meal side dish the only time I went there, and had no milk option.

I don’t feel particularly sorry for McDonald’s, and to be honest there are other groups I would much rather spend my time defending. (If a corporate accountability group ever tries to protest the music of Rush, look for a non-reluctant 17-part blog series defending the group.) As much as I think the more extreme protesters are providing an unrealisitic view, the McDonald’s ads are even more delusional. I’m especially critical of the TV commercials which suggest that every employee and patron of the chain have the body of a decathlete. Can’t they show just one morbidly obese customer rolling up on a Rascal?

If you’ve managed to keep McDonald’s out of your family’s life, more power to you. I certainly won’t criticize anyone’s choice not to take their kid to McDonald’s. But I’m going to keep eating there once in a while — whether they keep the crazy clown or not.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder of this parenting blog, which admittedly sometimes has nothing to do with parenting. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub.